Blog posts by Kevina

POTW: [Blossoms]

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

[Blossoms], May, 1975, V1990.2.251; Donald L. Nowlan Brooklyn collection, ARC.120; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today's Photo of the Week shows the Cherry Esplanade in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in May 1975. The photograph comes from the Donald L. Nowlan Brooklyn collection ARC.120. Nowlan attended Saint Saviour Elementary School in Park Slope, high school at Manual Training High School, also in Park Slope, and Brooklyn College in Midwood. Through his time in Brooklyn he documented the beauty of the Botanic…

POTW: Coney Island montage

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

[Photomontage of Coney Island], [192-?],  CONE_0434, Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library.
Today's photo of the week is a dizzying montage of negative images from Coney Island. Among the images is Lane's Irish House, an Irish-themed eatery (as you can guess from the name). Though the cataloger dates the montage to the 1920s, results from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle suggest the eatery opened in 1932 at Bowery and West 15th street.Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s…

A Hanging in Brooklyn, Part 1

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Content note: This story contains strong language, descriptions of violence, and descriptions of racism.  On the morning of August 1st 1884, Alexander Jefferson, known to his family and friends as Alec, walked to the gallows surrounded by clergymen, doctors, and activists. His brother Celestial Jefferson did not attend, but spent time with him the night prior. A throng of spectators spilled out around Fort Greene’s Raymond Street Jail. The ministers sang “Nearer My God to Thee” and other hymns. Doctors stood by, waiting to autopsy and skeletonize his body for research and display.…

POTW: Mystery Parade

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Brooklyn Bridge Celebrations, 1977, V1984.1.77; Brooklyn slide collection; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today's Photo of the Week is a Kodachrome slide showing a group of New Yorkers with drums and pompoms parading east over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. The original cataloger does not identify the parade, but notes these clues:A 12-13. Bridges. Brooklyn Bridge. Celebrations [handwritten on mount].MAY 77N5 3 [stamped on mount].A curious researcher could search through our digitized newspapers to…

POTW: Cozy in Brownsville

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

[Librarians at fireplace], 1915?, BPL_0383. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Christmas tree lots are fragrancing streetcorners, the sun is setting before 5, and a chill is driving us all into our homes where we light candles and settle in for the season. These librarians at Stone Avenue Library's gorgeous Carnegie building have set the perfect winter scene: a roaring fireplace, lit tapers, and coniferous adornments. Look at their perfectly trendy hair, some bobbed and some pinned up in a bob style for the…

Black and white photo showing bright overhead sun on border of the Flatbush Library garden against backdrop of adjacent buildings, the central one with an ivy-covered, sloping roof.

POTW: A Garden Grows Again in Flatbush

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

[Garden at Flatbush Branch Library], Summer 1932, BPL_0721; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
 Today's photo of the week shows the garden of Brooklyn Public Library's Flatbush branch in the summer of 1932. You can see other views of the garden from the same day here.Maura Johnson, a librarian at the Flatbush branch, revived this garden in recent years in collaboration with colleagues and the New York Restoration Project. The library holds regular Accessible Gardening Hours and Open Garden Hours, which you…

POTW: Moonlight

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Moonlight, Nelson, Walter H., circa 1887, V1972.1.1218. Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Tonight's Photo of the Week is a cool evening on the water in 1887 by Walter H. Nelson from our Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection. In this scan the silvery photographic substrate slightly obscures the image. In person, the photograph seems touched with moonlight. Nelson was an amateur photographer about whom little has been written. Aside from…

Brooklyn poets remember

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Dina Abdulhadi reading, April 24 2024. Photo: Kevina Tidwell.
“She wrote poetry, she published, she was read, and then she died.” Former Brooklyn poet laureate D. Nurkse spoke those words as an introduction to the poet Enid Dame. Nurkse was one of seven poets who read in the Othmer library last month to a packed room. Each poet selected poems from the Center for Brooklyn History’s library and archives collections and read them in conversation with their own poetry and reflections. Nurkse, in his words on Dame…

Array of noted literary talent of Brooklyn gathers around folk singer Oscar Brand at the National Library Week Luncheon in the Hotel St. George on Tuesday, April 5. Seated, left, is Marianne Moore, the famous poetess of Cumberland Street. Standing, left to right, are Chief Librarian Francis R. St. John of Brooklyn Public Library; Brooklyn Heights humorist Ira Wallach; Paule Marshall, guest speaker, and Norman Rosten, Remsen Street poet and playwright who wrote a special poem for the occasion.

From the Vault: An Ode to Brooklyn Poets

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

 

Array of noted literary talent, 1960s, gelatin silver print, CBPL_1062. Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
I am reviving, from the vaults, this photo of a major gathering of Brooklyn "literary talent", first featured in this blog about Brooklyn poetry. The original Brooklyn Daily Eagle captions read:"Array of noted literary talent of Brooklyn gathers around folk singer Oscar Brand at the National Library Week Luncheon in the Hotel St. George on Tuesday, April 5. Seated, left…

POTW: Ramadan

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Young girl at evening prayers with her father during Ramadan, 2010, GERH_0001; Robert E. Gerhardt, Jr. photograph collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.This Sunday, March 10 marks the new moon and the start of Ramadan. In this photo from the Robert E. Gerhardt, Jr. photograph collection, a young girl stares intently into the camera. She and her father are praying at the Muslim American Society in Bath Beach, 1933 Bath Avenue, in 2010. Robert Gerhardt Began photographing Muslims in Brooklyn in 2010 during Ramadan, leading him to photograph mosques and Muslims all…

POTW: Love of Line, of Light and Shadow: The Brooklyn Bridge

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Love of Line, of Light and Shadow: The Brooklyn Bridge, October 24, 1982, V1973.4.86; Postcard Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
Clarinetist F. Gerard Errante commissioned a clarinet score and video from Reynold Weidenaar as a "centennial tribute to the Brooklyn Bridge" in 1982. Musical America described Love of Line, of Light and Shadow: The Brooklyn Bridge as "a strangely moving, evocative work ... visually spectacular ... with an equally fascinating soundtrack of traffic resonances and…

POTW: From the Vault: Transformation and Discovery

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Cortelyou Road and Flatbush Avenue, 1916, v1973.2.106; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection ARC.201; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
  This From the Vault post was originally written by Julie May (who loves the fall) and published on October 1, 2014 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. As we should expect of our…

I Married the Widow of the Man Who Shot Your Horse

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

  

[Josiah M. Grumman diary cover, clippings, poem, and POW roster], 1861—1862, Josiah M. Grumman diary, 1973.110; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
A researcher wrote to me a few months back, seeking to fact check a piece of romantic Civil War hearsay. * He had heard of a promise made on the battlefield between two soldiers of Brooklyn’s 14th Regiment at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862. Quartermaster Sargeant Alexander Barnie Jr. was said to have vowed to the mortally wounded Lieutenant Josiah M. Grumman to marry…

Happy Fourth of July

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Sunset, Coney Island, August 23 1963, V1988.12.92; Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn slides, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
Today's photo of fireworks double exposed over a sherbet sky comes from the photographer Otto Dreschmeyer. Dreschmeyer was a resident of Ridgewood (briefly Brooklyn, once and currently Queens) and the son of German immigrants, about whom very little is known. Dreschmeyer was an amateur photographer who captured the kinds of images many of us have on our photo rolls today: parades, cats, and fireworks. Have…

POTW: Happy May Day from this Brighton Beach Fishmonger

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

Worker cutting fish, 1987, COHEN_0092; George Cohen photograph collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
  George Cohen, a Bronx-born photographer, donated a selection of his photographs of 1980s Brighton Beach to the Brooklyn Public Library in 2013. On this May Day qua International Workers' Day, I found a worker cutting a fish for sale in Brighton Beach in 1987. This fishmonger reminded me of my father, who worked as a fish cutter in Ohio in the 1980s. He made frequent trips to New York where he…

POTW: Happy Women's History Month from three Queen Esthers

Kevina Center for Brooklyn HistoryCenter for Brooklyn History

  

 Girls as Queen Esther, 1965, HERZ_0424; Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today's photo of the week comes from the Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection. Five Hasidic children stand on the front step of a Williamsburg building on Purim in 1965. Three are dressed as Queen Esther, hero of the Book of Esther, who saved the Jewish people of ancient Persia from King Haman. To read more about the Herzberg collection, see this 2014 blog post. Although some of…